fizzback

27 Aug 2007
CRM Marketplace
www.crmmarketplace.com

 

USING CUSTOMER FEEDBACK TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS

Engaging with customers in a way that enhances their experience is one of the biggest challenges a company faces today. Mobile technologies and sophisticated CRM systems have dramatically changed the way companies communicate with their customers, and vice versa. But the one area that most companies struggle with is getting meaningful and actionable feedback from customers.

 

Feedback can give companies a real insight into what their customers are experiencing at the front line. No matter how clever a company’s CRM system is, it can’t tell you what is happening on the shop floor; and senior management can’t possibly patrol every store, hotel, station or lounge to monitor customer experience. So they rely on feedback to tell them what’s going on and to develop relationships with their customers.

 

The most commonly used way of gathering feedback is a good old-fashioned questionnaire or survey (granted, in many cases they are now delivered online). But these present a fundamental problem to companies. The majority of customers don’t give feedback, once their experience is over. Either they can’t be bothered to report back what they think of a product or service, or they may be embarrassed by confrontation. Even those that do wish to convey their experience may only be able to tell half the story. The form that tells you that a guest at a hotel was ‘satisfied’ with the service may look good, but is it enough to get them to return? What would have changed that view to ‘excellent’?

 

By the time a customer gives feedback, their memory of the experience may have dimmed or ‘the moment’ has gone. They may go away feeling let down by the experience they’ve had and in worse cases, influence their friends (we tell nine people, on average, about a bad experience). Disgruntled customers walk away fast. And no amount of relationship management will work once they’ve left. But if you can identify what has gone wrong, you can put it right. And by digging a bit deeper, you can find out what would turn that customer into a loyal advocate for your company

 

So methods of collecting feedback that rely on customers relaying information are not reliable on their own – they provide less detail, they may not reflect the true experience that the customer had, and they don’t give companies a chance to put right any issues the customer has experienced.

 

If you want to get a true account of what customers experience, you have to capture feedback at the point of experience. An instant feedback system like Fizzback lets customers provide their feedback in situ. It’s immediate, it’s convenient and it allows them to express themselves in their own words. And it helps the company eliciting feedback from their customers to manage that feedback.

 

For example, using Fizzback, a customer sends feedback via SMS to a dedicated number. The text is directed via an automated system, which uses artificial intelligence to understand and analyse the message content, routing it straight to the person or team best qualified to deal with it, in the nearest location. It even recognises when information is missing (for example, if a passenger on a train texts to say the ticket machine at their station is broken, but omits to name the station, an automated, but personalised response can be sent out asking for the missing details).

 

The system sends a response to the customer, thanking them for their feedback. This message can be highly personalised and from a named contact, which experience shows makes the customer feel that they are important and that their feedback is being taken seriously.

 

The company then has an opportunity to build a relationship with that customer. Fixing a problem straight away can turn a potentially negative customer into one who will return again and again. In serious cases, customers who are ‘at risk’ of defecting are identified by the system so that a company representative can call them and put right the problem. This goes a long way to securing loyalty.

 

Equally useful is feedback that gives you more insight into that customer. It is interesting that many of the companies using Fizzback’s instant feedback system have found that more than half of the feedback coming through the system is positive, praising the company for a job done well. So not only can they find out what is going wrong, but also what’s going well, and what that customer values. This information can be used to collect data on a customer that will allow you to target them with products and services that you know they value. In addition, smart companies use this information to reward or praise customer-facing staff, which is a great motivation tool and, in turn, leads to improved customer service and therefore loyalty.

 

The immediacy of feedback means that companies can put right problems as they occur, leading them to improve customer retention rates. Fizzback has helped companies record up to a 52 per cent increase in customer satisfaction following issue-retrieval efforts.

 

84 per cent of consumers prefer the use of easy, instant channels such as SMS text or mobile email for providing feedback and, given a choice, 94 per cent of customers prefer to give feedback in situ, not after the event. This means that an otherwise ‘silent majority’ of customers suddenly find a voice when these channels are made available to them and will communicate with providers during those critical ‘moments of truth’. In this way instant feedback services like those offered by Fizzback are helping to build a bridge between provider promises and customer expectations – in turn driving loyalty and new customer acquisition.

 

http://www.crmmarketplace.com/downloads/detail.aspx?docid=02a30ef0-9343-4700-a6b8-ac23673fbee4